Situated at the heart of the Balkan Peninsula, Bosnia and Herzegovina encompasses both Mediterranean and Alpine climates, landscapes and henceforth some of the richest flora and fauna found in Europe.
Much of Bosnia and Herzegovina is mountainous. The long chain of the Southern Alps – the Dinaric Alps - stretches from northwest Slovenia through the heart of Bosnia and Herzegovina and into Montenegro, and finishes in the Prokletija Mountains on the Albanian border. Herzegovina hosts the highest and wildest part of this mountain range, which for centuries provided the population protection from Roman invaders, and which slowed the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia. The central belt of Bosnia has both rocky mountains and green, rolling hills covered with conifer forests and lined with countless freshwater streams and rivers.
